


Wedlocked

by OffYourBird



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Dramedy, Eventual Romance, F/M, Forced Marriage, I somehow managed to write a slowburn in a fic that's three chapters long, It's a special kind of talent, Lighthearted, especially in a fic originally meant to be a one shot, season 4, season 5, trigger warning: canon suicide attempt talk, which clearly didn't happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:00:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23531239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OffYourBird/pseuds/OffYourBird
Summary: When Buffy wanted to get married immediately (without abandoning a blind Giles), what was a smitten vampire to do but find a way to make it happen? Now, six weeks after the Will Be Done spell, the consequences of their application for unholy matrimony have caught up to the de-spelled pair.
Relationships: Spike/Buffy Summers
Comments: 36
Kudos: 419





	1. Unholy Matrimony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amidtheflowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amidtheflowers/gifts).



> I was going to wait a little while to start publishing this here, but I figure we can all use the pick-me-up ♥
> 
> This fic was written for and is dedicated to one of the universe’s most splendid creations, amidtheflowers, my dyad in the force and an utterly stunning ray of sunshine. 
> 
> As a refresher for those who haven’t watched Doomed in a while: about midway through, Buffy rebuffs Riley’s advances and flat-out tells him she doesn’t want to pursue anything further between them. We’re picking up right after that pertinent ‘no means no, Riley’ conversation (which sadly didn’t stick in canon, but is obviously going to here).

Buffy was decidedly unready for the day to get worse. It was almost midnight though, so there was the faint hope that it wouldn’t. Emphasis on the ‘faint,’ since it was a tried and true fact that badness on the hellmouth liked to come in threes. And despite how sucktastic the day had been, all of the badness had stemmed from only two sources: one, the threat of imminent apocalypse announced by way of a ‘hey you died the last time this happened’-style earthquake and an annoyingly strong, grave-robbing demon; and, two, breaking things off with Riley after learning her normal, Iowa corn-fed guy was actually one of the military monster-catching commandos.

She of the Secret Identity _so_ didn’t need a doppelganger for a boyfriend. Not that Riley really qualified as male Slayer material, anyway. Especially when his organization seemed way more interested in experimenting on demons than in slaying them. Especially when he hadn’t even known what the Slayer _was_. It definitely didn't help that, when she’d tried to explain, Riley’d acted like it was some job she could leave at the door at five o’clock, as if she wasn’t usually the only thing standing between humanity and the end of the world. As if being with her didn’t spell complete doomage, with a capital D.

Riley, she’d decided, was an Owen 2.0. That he was going to get himself killed playing with forces he didn’t understand was likely inevitable, but she wasn’t about to encourage the behavior. _Been there, done that, got the thrill-seeking ex-crush to prove it._

Bottom line: she just _knew_ some third piece of badness would be arriving any minute.

And, hey, chalk one up for Slayer-y premonition, because she was right.

Buffy stood by her dorm mailbox and stared at the large manila envelope that had been unceremoniously crammed inside. It was a pretty inconspicuous piece of badness, as far as badness went, except for the fact that it was neatly addressed to _Mr. and Mrs. Bloody_.

A surge of unwanted memories rolled through her—of laughing and arguing with Spike on Giles’s armchair about their future wedding and past relationships, of being so utterly and completely in love that she'd viewed Spike's status of evil vampire as nothing more than a personal idiosyncrasy, of cold kisses that made her melt into a puddle of flaming Slayer.

Buffy ripped open the envelope with more viciousness than any piece of paper probably deserved and then stared blankly at its contents.

It was a marriage certificate. Three copies of one, in fact, with a cover letter from some law firm in L.A. called Wolfram & Hart. The letter congratulated “Mr. William T. Bloody and Mrs. Buffy A. Bloody” on the approval of their submitted marriage application, and notified them that the ensuant matrimonial contract was effective starting retroactively from the date of submission and “binding until permanent death.”

The envelope and papers slid from Buffy’s numb fingers, floating to the floor as the sound of wedding bells rang between her ears like a death knell.

***

“What the hell is this?!” Buffy demanded as she flung the envelope and papers at Spike’s face. _Up_ at his face, as a matter of fact, since Spike was—for some idiotic reason—standing on the back of Xander’s couch, his arms spread in a really bad Vitruvian man imitation. “And what are you even–” She trailed off, her voice choking with disbelief as she focused on him steadily enough to realize he was missing his usual black-on-black garb. “Are you... wearing Xander’s clothing?”

Spike was, she was pretty sure, wearing one of Xander’s Hawaiian-style, floral shirts and a pair of Xander’s khaki shorts—both of which were about three sizes too large for him, and looked borderline obscene when paired with his black Doc Martens. Especially when it left her getting an eyeful of Spike’s pale skin from knee to lower calf.

_Huh. Spike has normal, hairy guy legs. I so never needed to know that._

Spike glowered at her, looking both furious and mortified. He jumped down from the couch to the floor, holding the papers in a white-knuckled grip. “Bloody hell! Haven’t you heard of knocking?”

Buffy didn’t bother to reply, all of her brainpower now dedicated to taking in the novelty that was Spike dressed in green floral patterns.

William the Bloody, previously the Slayer of Slayers, had become the Slayer of Xander’s Wardrobe.

Buffy’s fury fled and a snorting giggle escaped her lips.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up because the vampire shrunk his clothes,” Spike muttered, his jaw clenching tight.

Spike had been doing laundry? Did vampires... _do_ laundry? Well, apparently, one did. Though clearly not well, since he'd come out of the affair looking like he'd stolen the fabric straight off some old granny's sofa set.

Buffy’s giggle expanded into full-blown laughter. She laughed so hard that she ended up half bent over, her sides aching and her eyes welling with tears. Oh god, it'd been _years_ since she'd laughed so hard. Struggling to breathe as mirth continued bubbling through her, Buffy wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and blinked until her vision cleared. Her gaze, as it turned out, was now level with Xander’s crappy coffee table. A coffee table that currently had a stake clamped to the front of it, pointy side up.

_What the heck?_

Buffy straightened back to a full standing position and considered the scene she’d walked into. “Spike…” Her voice came out still carrying a cadence of mirth, so she took a moment to steady herself, then tried again with a more serious tone. “Were you… about to stake yourself?”

Spike met her eyes mutinously. “What’s it to you?” His voice so snappish and sneering that she nearly missed the tremble in it.

 _Oh god, he was. Spike was getting ready to dust himself._ To Buffy's great discomfort, her immediate emotional response was one of sickened, sympathetic horror. She brutally tamped it down. That kind of emotion was reserved for souled vampires trying to commit suicide because they were being screwed with by some Big Evil. It was definitely _not_ for annoying, evil vampires who only remained unstaked because their fangs had been jailed.

“What's it to me?” Buffy shrugged. “It’s absolutely nothing.” The words sounded overly callous even to her own ears, and she barely held back a wince before she firmed up her resolve.

_I'm the Slayer. He's an evil vampire. I don't need to feel guilty because he's decided the shine's gone off his unlife now that he's barred from killing and mayhem._

Her eyes sought out the stake again. It was one of Xander’s whittled stakes, but a lot sharper than he usually bothered to make them. This one was the kind of sharp that took hours of careful attention—or abject boredom—to achieve.

Just how long had Spike been planning this suicide attempt?

Buffy forced her eyes away from the stake and swept her gaze through the room instead, taking in the entirety of Spike’s suicide set-up. Her nose wrinkled in confusion. “Why were you trying to _fall_ on the stake? If you land the wrong way, you’ll just end up with a gaping chest wound. Or break the table. Or both. Doing it by hand would be way more sure-fire. Or sure-thrust, as the case may be.”

Spike deepened the glare he'd been giving her. “If you’re here just to criticize my technique, then sod the hell off. I’m sort of busy. And if you’re looking for Droopy Boy, well, sod the hell off just the same. He’s not here.”

“I know he’s not here. We’re supposed to be meeting at Giles’s house soon-ish. I came here for–” The phrase _until permanent death_ flashed through her brain, resetting all of her original intentions.

_When life gives you sour vampires, make dust-ade. Or something._

Buffy pasted on a cheery smile. “You know what, it’s not important. I don’t need to interrupt. Have fun with the self-slayage, I hope that works out for you.” She held out a hand for the paperwork. “I’ll just take those back and be out of your hair.”

Spike regarded her suspiciously, then glanced down at the envelope. His eyes widened as he read the address block. “What’s this?”

“Nothing that will matter soon,” Buffy said, her smile turning rigid. “So. Papers. Gimme.”

Spike, predictably, ignored her. He flicked through the papers, his already pale face growing paler as he stared down at a copy of the marriage certificate. “Oh, bollocks. I forgot we did that.”

“There was no _we_ ,” Buffy said vehemently.

Spike’s head shot up, his expression furiously indignant. “Like hell there wasn’t! You put your signature on that paperwork same as me, _Mrs. Bloody_!”

“I didn’t think it was real!” Buffy shouted before grimacing, because, no, that wasn’t exactly right. Specifically, she hadn’t thought it was real after the spell—just something Spike had dug up to appease her when she’d told him she was going to die if she couldn’t get married to him that day (and knowing full well that she couldn't just run off and leave a blinded Giles to fend for himself). Admittedly, her impatience had been in no small part because she couldn’t imagine waiting some long number of days, weeks, or months to consummate their union.

Ugh.

So, when she’d come back from the magic shop to find Spike with a mail-in application for demonic wedlock (scrounged from Willy’s bar, of all freaking places), she’d been over the moon. Within the hour, they’d filled it out and sent it in with its sixty dollar fee. Buffy'd had every intention of ravishing her new husband right after that, but Xander and Anya’s arrival made a wreck of her plans.

Thank god. The post-spell fallout had been awful as it was; Buffy couldn’t imagine trying to cope with having had sex with Spike on top of it. She would've probably needed to stake him immediately.

Which, hey, was seeming awfully close to their current situation.

“Hate to break it to you,” Spike said dryly, “but that application was the real deal.”

Buffy shot him a deathglare. “Gee, I’m getting that, thanks.” She gestured toward the coffee table with its clamped-on stake. “But since you’re about to dust yourself, problem solved.”

Spike glanced at the stake, then down at the papers. A strange light sparked in his eyes that she very much didn’t like.

“Dunno, Slayer,” he said slowly. A smirk touched the edges of his lips. “I'm suddenly feeling like I might have a reason to live.”

Dread spilled down her spine. _Oh no. This is so not happening._

“How is being married to _me_ a reason to live?” she demanded, putting as much disgust into her words as possible. “That seems like all the more reason to shuck off your immortal coil. You’re married to the Slayer! That’s like… the epitome of an unnatural union.”

“Yeah, that it definitely is,” Spike agreed mildly. He flashed her a wicked grin, one that looked beyond ridiculous while paired with his current attire. “But the thing is, pet… _you’re_ also married to _me_.”

***

Spike avoided getting a stake through the heart by the slimmest margin in the universe. He survived only through the grace of his humiliating cast-offs and the fact that Buffy was technically at least some percentage responsible for their situation.

Which meant she was also responsible for getting it fixed.

So, forfeiting the stake, Buffy opted to gift her new husband with a broken nose, then left him biting off a slew of curses while she went to see Giles and the Scoobies. Thankfully, everyone was already gathered in Giles's condo per their pre-arranged meeting plans.

"Whoa, Buffster," Xander exclaimed when she burst through the door. "You're looking a bit wild-eyed there. Demon trouble?"

"Um. You could say that." She swallowed hard and met everyone's eyes, clutching the paperwork she'd retrieved from Spike. "I have some bad news."

Her reveal of the situation went about as well as could be expected: Giles nearly fell into his desk chair and started spewing Good Lords like they were Hail Marys, Willow kept mumbling apologetic phrases and promising to bake a year's supply of cookies, Anya grabbed the cover letter and started reading it with narrowed eyes, and Xander just sat slack-mouthed in stunned horror on the couch.

When Giles finally seemed to run out of appeals to god, Buffy ventured a hesitant, “Do you think there’s a way out of this? And does this mean I can’t get married now? In a non-spelled kind of way?” She grimaced. “Not that it’s something I plan on doing”—especially considering she’d just chased away her most recent faux-normal guy—“but it’d be nice to know if I even still have the option.”

Giles stared down at a copy of the marriage certificate, mouth pursing into a thin line. “I honestly have no idea. This is not… a situation the Slayer has ever been in before, to my knowledge.”

Buffy winced. “Yay, me.”

Giles sighed, nearly crushing his glasses against his knee. “I will call this Wolfram & Hart tomorrow and pursue a line of questioning. We'll get this sorted... somehow."

“That would be great,” Buffy said meekly, guilt surging as she took in Giles’s increasingly haggard demeanor. He’d already refilled his scotch glass twice since she’d arrived, and she had the niggling feeling that he was going to fill it plenty more once the Scoobies were gone.

“In the meantime,” Giles continued wearily, “I believe we’ve found the species of our grave-robbing demon.”

Buffy jerked in her seat, embarrassment flushing her cheeks. In the chaos of her marriage reveal, she’d almost forgotten about the impending apocalypse. Which was probably not a great way to ensure the world didn't end. Though, on the bright side, if the world _did_ end, then her marriage was a big, fat non-issue. She took a deep, centering breath. “Please tell me the demon's something I can kill?”

“You can definitely kill it,” Willow asserted eagerly, then wilted a bit. “But you have to find it first, and we don’t know where to even start looking for it.”

Unfortunately, the rest of the news the gang had uncovered was equally half-helpful. The demon was trying to fulfill the requirements for a world-ending ritual called ‘the sacrifice of three'; however, Giles’s books had been completely mum on exactly where or how the ritual was going to happen. For now, the demon still needed a book called the _Word of Valios_ to complete its array of ritual ingredients. But, like everything else having to do with this vague apocalypse, there was no indication of where the book was. Since they were on the hellmouth, though, Buffy would bet a month’s worth of jelly donuts that the book was hanging out somewhere local.

Eager to do something that wasn’t research or thinking about her change in marital status, Buffy headed to Sunnydale’s magic shop to see if the owner had a copy of their demon’s required reading, or if they knew someone who might.

And, of course—because this was exactly how her week was going—Buffy nearly ran smack dab into Riley, who was uber-focused on some kind of electronic device in his hand.

Buffy lifted a brow when he didn’t even look up at her. “Is this really the time to be so invested in _Donkey Kong_?”

Riley finally snapped his gaze away from the device and blinked at her like he was just coming out of a fugue state. “What?”

Buffy motioned toward the device.

“Oh! That. Yeah, no. It takes trace readings of creatures’ pheromones.”

Well, that was handy. “And?”

Riley grimaced. “And it’s either mating season for that demon you were fighting last night, or it’s moving all over town.”

Looking for the _Word of Valios_ , no doubt. Buffy gave Riley a short nod. “Thanks.”

He drew in a sharp breath as she made to walk past him. “Buffy, you know–”

“Sorry, I need to go.” She hoped she sounded more apologetic than she felt. “Got a Big Bad that needs to be squished.”

To her chagrin, Riley trailed after her. “Right, well, I’m on it, too. It’s just… this thing, this you and me thing—it’s stupid.”

“Exactly,” Buffy agreed. “Which is why we’re not doing it anymore, the you and me thing.”

Riley made an exasperated sound in his throat. “No, I mean, _you’re_ stupid.” He winced when she stopped in her tracks and stared at him incredulously. “No, I mean… I don’t mean that.” His expression shifted back to exasperated. “No, I think maybe I do.”

Incredulity turned to offense. “Gee,” Buffy said flatly, “with sweet talk like that, you must have all the girls on campus just falling over themselves to date you.”

Riley made another throaty sound of exasperation. She was starting to hate the sound.

“I’m serious,” he said vehemently. “You have this twisted way of looking at things, this doom and gloom mentality. You keep thinking like that and things will probably turn out just the way you expect.”

Buffy barely kept from laughing out loud. “Trust me,” she said dryly. “Nothing ever turns out like I expect. And usually in all the wrong ways.”

Riley pointed a triumphant finger in her direction. “See? That’s exactly what I mean! You’re so damn fatalistic.”

Buffy gritted her teeth, all of her flagging patience zooming outside city limits. She opened her mouth to tell him exactly what he could do with that accusatory finger and his stupid psychobabble—or at the very least, inform him that insulting her personality in addition to her intelligence was doing him less than zero favors—but what came out was a half-shouted, “I’m married, Riley.”

Riley’s sudden, sickly pall reflected her own horrified resignation as the words finally sunk in.

She was _married_ —at least by demon standards, whatever those were. To _Spike_ , of all beings. And perhaps worst of all, she hadn’t even gotten a wedding out of the deal.

Once Mom found out, however— _oh god, she was probably going to have to tell her mom, if Giles couldn’t get her out of this_ —that was likely to change. Knowing Joyce Summers, she’d either stake Spike on the spot or start planning Buffy’s wedding with all the fervor of a five-star general.

Riley made a strangled noise deep in his throat, a sound that seemed to have taken all of his exasperated scoffing noises, smooshed them together, and drowned them underwater. “You’re… _married_? I thought that whole engagement thing was a joke.”

Buffy flashed him a humorless smile. “Turns out… not so much.”

Riley looked completely lost. “I… I don’t know what to say.”

“I believe congratulations are traditional.”

Riley’s mouth drew a thin line. “Congratulations then, I guess.” He drew in a deep breath and shook his head, looking utterly bewildered. “You’re really not who I thought you were, Buffy.”

A flash of hurt dug deep claws beneath her skin. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Turning away, she started walking again. This time, Riley didn’t follow her.

***

Buffy’s visit to the magic shop was a bust, but it turned out that Giles had been unknowingly harboring the Word of Valios all along, as he shakily told her once he regained consciousness amidst the ruins of his living room.

“I was wrong, Valios isn’t a book,” he mumbled from the couch, an ice pack pressed to his forehead.

“What is it?”

“An artifact. I..” He laughed helplessly. “I bought the blasted thing at a sorcerer’s estate sale a couple years ago. I thought it was a knock-off.”

“Seriously?” Buffy exhaled noisily. “Trust the Hellmouth to turn a close-out sale into a possible world-ender.”

Giles motioned vaguely to where a book was open, askew on his desk. “I did, however, find out where the ritual will take place.”

“Is it where the three sacrifices will be lined up, too?”

“Yes.” Giles winced as he adjusted the ice pack. “The ritual has to be done over the hellmouth entrance in Sunnydale High School. The one in the library.”

Buffy grimaced. “Fantastic. I guess we’re going back to high school.”

She loaded up an arsenal of weapons, then called Xander and Willow and asked them to meet her ASAP on the front steps of their crispy-fried alma mater. Thankfully, she had only been waiting about five minutes by the time they arrived… with Spike in tow.

This night was just getting better and better.

“What is he doing here?”

Spike slapped a hand to his chest with exaggerated offense. “That’s no way to talk to your husband, Slayer.”

Xander groaned. “Can we please just stake him, Wil?”

Willow’s mouth thinned into a flat line. “For the tenth time, no. It’s not his fault the spell… that I… that he and Buffy…”

“Got hitched,” Spike finished laconically, with barely suppressed mirth.

“Right,” Willow finished with a huff. She shrugged apologetically in Buffy’s direction. “After what you told us about the him almost killing himself thing, I didn’t want to leave him alone in Xander’s basement.”

Spike huffed. “Not going to off myself anymore, Red. I told you.” He bounced on the balls of his feet. “Besides, I hear there’s the possibility the world’s about to end. Can’t have that now, can we?”

Buffy leveled him with an unimpressed stare. “You’re telling me you actually care?”

Spike expression turned serious, chastising. “Did before, didn’t I?”

Well, he had her there. Buffy bit her bottom lip and conceded the point with a brief nod. “Fine. Then hang out, whatever. Just don’t get in the way.”

Willow gave Spike an encouraging look. “You can help me and Xander get the sacrifices out while Buffy kicks some demon butt. There’re supposed to be three people in need of save-age, so that’ll work out great.”

Spike sighed. “Yeah, alright.”

Buffy made to open the front door, pausing when something rustled around the side of the building. “Get back,” she hissed to the others, cocking her crossbow.

There was more rustling, then Riley appeared, decked out in full commando gear.

Buffy lowered her crossbow with an irritated exhale. _For freak’s sake._

Riley froze when he realized he wasn’t alone, and glanced between them all like a deer caught in headlights. “Uh, hey, Buffy… Willow… and Xander, right? Jeez, what are the chances, huh?”

Willow raised an amused brow. “That we’d run into you all dressed up in your G.I. Joe gear?”

Riley gave an awkward, high-pitched laugh. “G.I… No! No, I’m just playing, um, paintball with the guys. We take it pretty seriously.”

Spike rolled his eyes from where he was not-so-subtly ducking behind Xander.

The motion must’ve attracted Riley’s gaze, because he zeroed in on Spike like a spider to a fly. “Hey, don’t I know you?”

Buffy didn’t want to examine why her stomach plummeted to her knees at Riley’s suspicious tone and Spike’s corresponding look of panic. So, she didn’t. Instead, she just leapt to the side and grabbed Spike’s arm with a broad smile—much to the surprise of everyone, including Spike.

“Well, I’ve talked about him enough that it probably _feels_ like you know him,” she chirped, her voice so saccharine sweet that it could've probably sent someone into a diabetic coma. “This is Spike, my husband.”

Riley dubiously eyed Spike from the bottoms of his Doc Martens to the top of his Xander-brand Hawaiian shirt.

“Wow,” he said finally. “That’s… wow.”

Spike bristled, and the cold bicep beneath Buffy's grip tensed rock hard. “And who’s this bucket of tepid water, sweetheart?” he asked, in what was probably the worst attempt at an American accent she’d ever heard.

“Um, Riley’s my… T.A.”

“And, as we can clearly see,” Xander said with aplomb, “one of the mysterious commandos.”

Riley went back to deer-in-headlights mode. “Commandos? No, I’m not…” He trailed off as everyone gave him identical _how-stupid-do-you-think-I-am_ looks. “Right. Um… Isn’t there a demon we should be killing?”

“That _I_ should be killing,” Buffy corrected, letting go of Spike’s arm and ignoring his questioning gaze. “If you’re coming, stay out of the way.”

Riley cast Spike a hard, almost smug look, like he was sizing up the competition and happy to find the other team wanting. “I know how to do that.”

Spike sneered at him as Buffy opened the door to Sunnydale High School, the metal squealing against rusted hinges. “I’ll bet you do, White Bread.”

***

In the end, Buffy was more grateful for Riley’s presence than she wanted to admit. When it turned out that their one demon was actually three demons—who were, joy of joys, their own sacrifices—only the quick use of Riley’s belt cable and Buffy’s insane leap down a fissure in the hellmouth floor to catch the last demon managed to save the day.

Seriously, was this Demon Suicide Attempt Week or something?

On the bright side, the skirmish taught them that Spike’s chip only worked on humans, not demons. Although him misguidedly throwing one of the demons down a fissure once he learned the fact had so _not_ been the most helpful part of that revelation. But since he’d done it after grabbing the demon that was trying to break Buffy’s back—fully expecting the chip to punish him—Buffy couldn’t bring herself to be very irritated. And thankfully, at the time, Riley had been too busy getting tackled by his own demon opponent to pay any attention to Spike's display.

“So,” Riley said as they stood awkwardly outside the high school. “Guess that’s taken care of.”

Buffy shrugged. “All in a day’s work.”

“Yeah, for you, seems pretty par for the course.” Riley hesitated, his gaze seeking out Spike from where he was standing with Willow and Xander about twenty feet away. “You’re really married to that guy?”

“Really, really,” Buffy agreed with a tight smile.

“That’s… I mean, it’s so…” Riley looked frustrated with himself. “Why didn’t you just say so before?”

Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “I told you ‘no.’ Multiple times, as memory serves. I didn’t realize I owed you all the details of my life to make the word meaningful.”

“You don’t! I just…” Riley continued staring at Spike. “I really feel like I’ve met him before.”

Buffy’s mouth widened into another perky smile, one she suspected looked more like a baring of teeth than anything else. “He’s lived in town for a couple years, on and off, so you’ve probably seen him in passing.”

“Yeah,” Riley said distantly. “Yeah, that’s probably it.” His gaze drew back to her and zeroed in on her hands. “You’re not wearing a ring.”

Buffy jerked in surprise. She self-consciously flexed her left hand. “I’m not,” she agreed, mind racing. “Slaying and precious metals aren’t all that mixy.”

Riley nodded. “I can see that." He stood drawing out an awkward silence, then finally mumbled, "So, uh, I guess I should go.”

“I guess so. Bye, Riley.”

It didn’t take more than a moment after Riley had gone for her neck to tingle with the warning of approaching vampire.

“You know, it’s rude to eavesdrop,” Buffy said without turning around.

Spike snorted. “Evil, pet, or did you forget?”

“Believe me, I _never_ forget.”

Spike came up to her side, eyes focused on where Riley had disappeared into the dark. “Then why’d you cover for me, Slayer? You could’ve told him I was Hostile 17, let them haul me in again. No doubt they’d dust me this time, too much a liability and all that, then I’d be out of your hair. Marriage contract null and void.”

Doing that would’ve definitely made things easier on pretty much every front. Except, the idea of sending a defanged and helpless Spike back to some underground government lab to be put down like a wild animal was… awful. It would’ve been like sending a stray tomcat off to get euthanized just because she didn’t want it hanging around her street anymore.

Okay, that was a bad-weird analogy. But still.

She turned her head and met Spike’s gaze. “Giles is going to call the law firm tomorrow. He’ll use his British snobbishness and get us some kind of speedy annulment.”

Spike lifted a brow. “That right?” At her confident nod, his lips quirked humorlessly. “Pet, do you even know what Wolfram & Hart _is_?”

“I’m pretty sure I just said it was a law firm.”

“Yeah,” Spike said with rising amusement, “but that’s like saying the ocean is wet. Not untrue, but sure as hell not the whole picture.”

Buffy frowned. “Okay… so what is it then?”

“Way I hear it? Big interdimensional front organization for some nasty demonic types.”

Buffy stared at him, agape. “And you thought it was a great idea to get our marriage contract from them?”

Spike’s jaw clenched, a muscle ticcing madly. “At the time, I thought anything was a great idea if it meant getting to shag you.”

Buffy swallowed hard, a flush rising in her cheeks. Her standard “you’re a pig, Spike” refrain waited on the tip of her tongue, but she held it back because, well, she’d felt exactly the same way at the time. She’d wanted so badly to share that kind of intimacy with Spike, to show him exactly how happy and in love with him she was. She'd wanted to cement that she belonged to him and he belonged to her, and that was that.

If she didn’t love Willow so much, she’d probably be well on the road to hating her right now.

“Trust me,” Spike continued, when Buffy didn’t reply, “your Watcher won’t be getting anything from Wolfram & Hart that they don’t want to give.”

Buffy turned on her heel and headed toward her friends. “We’ll see about that.”

***

Unfortunately, Spike’s words of warning proved to be stupidly accurate.

“I even went so far as to contact the Council,” Giles said wearily. Then, catching her horrified look, hastened to add, “I didn’t provide them any particulars of the situation, I simply asked about their, ah, leverage with matters related to Wolfram & Hart.”

Buffy heaved a resigned sigh. “Let me guess: not very lever-y?”

“Not very,” Giles agreed. His expression hardened. “But we haven’t stopped researching. Anya has provided the contact information for a few independent lawyers who work with demonic law.”

Anya looked over from Giles’s couch, where she was watching TV with Xander and Willow. “Like I told Giles, don’t get your hopes up. Wolfram & Hart could keep litigation tied up for decades. Centuries, even.”

Buffy regarded her blankly. “ _Centuries_? But I’d be way dead by then. Like, super dead. I mean, I’m pushing Slayer retirement age here already.”

Anya nodded. “Exactly. With your short lifespan, it’s a waste of money. It’s not like the contract really changes your life, anyway.”

Xander made a strangled noise. “I call Buffy being married to an evil bloodsucker pretty damn life-changing, Ahn!”

“Why?” Anya regarded them all in confusion. “It’s not like Buffy and Spike have to _act_ like they’re married. They just can’t get legally married to anyone else. With Buffy’s short life expectancy, she’s not bound to run into that issue anyway, and Spike clearly doesn't care about it when unspelled, since he was with Drusilla all those years without marrying her.”

Giles, when he was done wincing at all of the reminders of Buffy’s expiration date, sighed. “Though I am loathe to admit it,” he said quietly to Buffy, “it’s not the worst course of action.”

Buffy glanced down at her bare left hand, a pang of old hurt welling and making her eyes burn. It felt like the final nail in the coffin of the idea that Buffy Gets Some Shred of Normalcy (TM) to admit that she was never, ever going to get married (in a real, non-spell-induced way).

But such was the life of the Slayer.

She’d just have to make do with her marriage-by-technicality to an evil vampire.

“It’s fine,” she said with a grim, shaky smile. “Anya’s right. It doesn’t change anything. We’ll just… pretend nothing’s different. Because it isn’t.” Her eyes widened as thoughts of Mom struck home. “And absolutely no one say _anything_ to my mom about this. In fact, let’s just never say anything about the contract ever again, okay?”

Xander nodded eagerly. “Fine by me.”

“Me too,” Willow said quietly. “But for the record, I’m also really, really sorry.”

“Noted,” Buffy said.

Anya looked at them all in bemusement. “I still don’t understand why this is such a big deal, but I can pretend, too.”

“I shall do so happily,” Giles muttered, raising his scotch glass.

So, that’s what they did. Even Spike didn’t bring up their marriage again, which seemed seriously out-of-character until she learned that Giles had paid him a visit right after the Scooby meeting. She had no idea what her Watcher said but, whatever it was, Spike hardly looked at her after that, and he was almost painfully tight-lipped whenever he and Giles were accidentally in the same room.

Life went on as if the marriage had never happened.

Except sometimes, Buffy couldn’t stop from digging through her jewelry box until she found the hideous skull ring she'd buried at the bottom—a ring she’d never tried to return, and that Spike had never asked to have back.

Sometimes, she put it on her left hand and pretended for a span of five minutes that she was actually happily married and in love.

And sometimes, when she was lonely and horny and unbearably frustrated, she wore the ring into the shower and ran the water cold enough that it raised goosebumps on her flesh and tightened her nipples into hard buds. Then she turned the showerhead onto its massage setting and pressed it between her legs, squeezing her breasts with her free hand until she came, her pussy pulsing against the jet and making the water feel temporarily warm. If someone was home, she smothered her cries against her ring hand, leaving a temporary indent on her cheek from the bulky metal.

Then, disgusted with herself, she always stowed the ring away again and pretended she’d never fished it out.

At least until she did it again. Because, damnit, she had needs and, despite how very much the marriage contract didn’t mean anything, the idea of dating still felt dirty. Like she would somehow be carrying on her father’s legacy of infidelity.

She figured she’d get over it at some point, but… for now she made do with her trusty old showerhead, and Spike’s ring, and a lot of cold water.


	2. You May Now Kiss the Bride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... I may be having way too much fun with my wedding-related foolery in the chapter titles. If such a thing is possible.

As the months went on, Buffy couldn’t help but notice how weirdly helpful Spike had started being.

Like how he’d helped her Watcher-turned-Fyarl-demon escape his Initiative pursuers without a single complaint or request for payment.

Like how he’d alerted the Scoobies to something being seriously amiss after a run-in with Faith-in-Buffy’s-body at the Bronze.

Like how he’d risked life and limb to join the Scoobies in getting Oz out of the Initiative labs when their (temporarily) returned werewolf was captured.

Like how he’d been recruited by Adam and immediately let the Scoobies know, then declared that he was going to play turncoat without Buffy having to even think to ask.

Like how he’d joined them in taking down Adam and the Initiative. And, when Buffy had hesitated in delivering the necessary killing blow to Riley (her ex-almost-boyfriend having been turned into some demony cyborg under Adam’s control), how he’d stepped in and twisted off Riley’s steel-riddled neck with barely a smirk.

Like how he started showing up randomly during the summer when she patrolled, slipping into place on her left side with some excuse about looking for “a spot of violence before bedtime," then smoking like a freight train and talking pretty much only when he felt it necessary to taunt his opponents into making a stupid move.

The mostly silent patrol buddy situation was the weirdest thing of all—seriously, she was starting to suspect that Giles had put some kind of limited-talking spell on Spike—but Buffy found herself completely unwilling to ask her-husband-by-technicality what kind of demon cat had gotten his tongue. Instead, she joined him in apparent spelldom and kept her talking limited to routine greetings, slaying quips, and necessary directions.

And Spike kept being quietly helpful.

Which meant that Buffy was about zero percent surprised to find Dracula’s mansion burning to the ground shortly after the famous vamp’s arrival. Though she had no idea how Spike had gotten _stone_ to burn.

Exasperation and burning curiosity sent Buffy's already-weakening vow of near-silence tumbling straight down with one of the mansion’s main walls. Eyes narrowing, she turned away from Dracula’s pyre-y mansion and marched straight to Spike’s crypt.

“I didn’t realize pyromania was a skill on your Big Bad resume,” she said with forced casualness as she barged in, the crypt door banging against the wall like a gunshot.

Spike, who was lazing in his armchair, didn’t so much as twitch at her entrance. Just watched her with a supreme lack of concern or surprise.

“Figured I’d branch out,” he drawled.

"With a fire hot enough to burn stone? How does that even happen?"

“Called in a few favors.”

Buffy stood unmoving, waiting for more, but Spike didn’t give her anything except a bland stare. Only the fact that it looked carefully applied kept her from asking if he'd gotten a personality transplant and forgotten to mention it.

“Why?” she asked quietly, after a long pause. _Why do you keep doing this? What the hell aren't you saying?_

Spike’s gaze shifted to her neck, where she’d hidden Dracula’s bite beneath her hair. The same bite that had nearly blinded her with searing pain an hour ago—no doubt around the time Spike’s fire had started. 

Spike shrugged. “I felt like making a point." His stare turned flat, hard as glass. “That wanker’s got no respect for the institution of marriage.”

_Marriage._

The word coursed through the crypt like lightning—stunningly electric after eight months of disuse. Still, Buffy could have ignored it. Just said “thanks” and been on her way. Except… she was really tired of playing the Quiet Game.

“And you do,” she hazarded flatly.

Spike snorted and stretched out carelessly in his chair, hands lacing behind his head. “Don’t see me having three wives and on the prowl for a fourth, do you?”

Buffy’s lips quirked. “I guess you could have them stashed out of sight so I couldn’t pound them into dust.”

Surprise flashed across Spike’s face, quickly followed by smug amusement. “I didn’t realize those green eyes spoke true, Slayer. Good to know you want me all to yourself.”

The retort that curled immediately between Buffy’s lips— _I don’t want you at all_ —evaporated as she grappled with the continued stalemate between morals and practical reality. Despite all her efforts, eight months of reflecting à la masturbatory cold showers hadn’t helped her reconcile the weird complexity of her marriage-by-technicality wherein cheating wasn’t actually cheating.

“Want has nothing to do with it,” she said finally. “I’m stuck with you, the same way you’re stuck with me. We’re like… wedlocked. Emphasis on the _locked_.”

Spike just cocked his head and stared at her. It was a dark, intent kind of stare that made her feel simultaneously like some intriguing piece of artwork and a gazelle he was about to pounce on.

She tried again. “That’s why you’ve been helping this past year, right?” _And obviously doing the not-dating-anyone dance, the same way I have been._ “Because we’re stuck?”

Spike’s gaze broke from hers. He straightened in his chair and intently fished out a cigarette from the carton on his side table.

“I’ve been helping,” he mumbled as he stuck the cigarette between his lips and flicked his zippo open, “because I’ve bloody well felt like it.” He lit the cigarette and inhaled slowly, tossing the zippo back on the table with a careless clatter.

Buffy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Look, I don’t know what Giles said to you last year, but–”

“This’s got nothing to do with the Watcher,” Spike snapped, transferring the cigarette to his fingers and glaring at her. A derisive huff of laughter escaped his lips. “Trust me, pet, if that moving pile of reference materials had gotten his way, I’d have cleared out of town long ago.”

Buffy froze. “Giles told you to leave Sunnydale?”

“Well, yeah.” Spike shrugged and took another drag. “I told him where to stick it with that suggestion, of course.”

“Of course,” Buffy repeated blankly.

“Yeah,” Spike continued agreeably. “So, then Rupert did a long song and dance of threats. Annulment via crossbow bolt and the like.”

“Which you also ignored.”

“Right. And I was keeping my gob too shut for him to justify violence of the honest kind.”

Well, that explained Spike’s verbal minimalism, at least. “So, Giles left you alone after that?”

“Nah, he tried to bribe me to hit the road after the final blow-up with our Tony Robbins cyborg. Offered me a fine mint, as a matter of fact.” Spike’s upper lip curled into a sneer. “Git.”

Buffy absorbed that slowly. “So, let me get this straight… you gave up being verbally annoying, ignored death threats, and refused a hunk of cash just to stay in Sunnydale—a town that contains a laundry list of your humiliations, your mortal enemy, and basically none of your friends.”

“Oi!” Spike glared at her again. “I have friends here.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Spike. _So_ not the point.”

Spike pursed his lips and rose to his feet with a single, fluid motion that was wholly inhuman and completely belligerent. “Just what do you want from me, Slayer?”

Buffy’s instinctive combativeness flared in response.

“I want you to tell me what’s here that could possibly be worth staying for,” she bit out, then sucked in a panicked breath. It was the truth; she _did_ want to know, but that didn’t change the fact that what was known couldn’t be unknown. She could pretend, of course, but it wasn’t the same—as she was currently demonstrating. Since here she was, breaking eight months of radio silence, having this conversation, asking this question.

Spike regarded her carefully, taking another drag from his cigarette. “I’ll have you know, I’ve gotten rather fond of this shitehole. I’ve poshed up the crypt, even got a telly now, and there’s no shortage of demons to thrash. Plus, there’s a butcher on every corner for when I’m peckish.” He whirled slowly, arms outstretched. “Seems to me that I’ve got everything a vamp could want.”

Relief and disappointment warred for dominance, and ended up in a weird tangle of a tie. “Yeah,” Buffy agreed dryly. “You’re living the life.”

“Bloody right I am.”

“Good for you.” There didn’t seem to be anything else to say after that, so Buffy turned on her heel and exited the crypt without another word, shutting the door firmly behind her.

***

The next time Spike showed up, he was—inevitably—bringing helpful news.

It was starting to piss her off.

“Thought you should know that I staked Harmony and her band of circus freaks,” he announced as he slid into the kitchen from the back porch, interrupting Buffy’s rant about how Dawn was going to get them all killed by doing stupid things like inviting murderous vampires into the house.

Buffy halted mid-step from where she’d been getting ready to head upstairs and pack a bag of weapons. “How did you…”

“Ran into her lot in Restfield,” Spike said with amusement, leaning against the doorframe with his fingers in his belt loops. “Dozy bint told me she was gunning for you. I know you could handle her, but since she was stepping on my turf with her delusions of Slayer killing…” He smirked. “Figured I should take measures.”

“Delusions,” Xander echoed from where he was standing by the kitchen island with Anya. “Yeah, that _is_ your turf, isn’t it?”

Spike sneered at him. “Hardly. Two Slayer kills does not delusion make, mate.”

All of Buffy’s rising relief was quelled by a wave of disgust. “Okay, that is enough talk of killing Slayers under this roof. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ve reached our quota for the next year.” She pointed toward the back porch. “Spike. Out.”

Spike straightened from his leaning position, affront marring his features. “Hey, I was doing– _Hey_!” He yelped as Buffy bodily shoved him outside and slammed the door behind her. He stopped his backward momentum just before he fell down the porch stairs, then smoothed out his duster and scowled at her. “Some thanks I get.”

A pinch of guilt tugged at her, and Buffy crossed her arms in front of her chest with a sigh. Gross Slayer comments and her irrational irritation at his continued helpfulness aside, Spike did deserve at least some expression of gratitude for dealing with Harmony and her minions.

“Thank you,” Buffy said with weary sincerity.

Spike blinked, his outrage fading. “Right. Well… you’re welcome.” He cleared his throat. “No skin off my back to do away with the stupid bint.”

“Still appreciated,” Buffy admitted. “Dawn accidentally invited Harmony into the house, so you saved me from having to go out slaying yet again tonight.”

“Oh, sodding hell.” Spike looked apprehensively toward the door. “Little sis is okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. At least until I get ahold of her.”

Spike flashed her a quick grin. “Go easy on the Bit, Slayer. She worships you.”

An indelicate snort escaped Buffy’s lips. “Worships me? Uh, have you _met_ Dawn? If it were up to her, I’d be non-existent. Like, literally. She once wished I’d never been born. _Aloud_.”

Spike waved her words away. “That’s just how younger siblings are supposed to act. You’ll pretend to be mortal enemies until the end of bleeding time, but–” He cut himself off and looked away.

Damnit, this conversation was not going to be another rendition of the Quiet Game. “But what?”

Spike’s jaw clenched, and she was afraid for a long moment that he wouldn't answer. Then the tension drained from him with a sigh as he stared out into her yard. “But you’d do sodding anything for each other.”

A heavy silence rang between them. Buffy’s heart thumped out an uncertain drumline bass rhythm as she contemplated the possibility that they were no longer just talking about her and Dawn. Maybe Spike never had been.

In the week since she’d visited Spike’s crypt, Buffy had become more and more convinced that Spike had just said what he thought she wanted to hear. Which might’ve been a good decision then, but now… Now she had no idea what she wanted, except that she didn’t want to keep going with the status quo anymore.

“So, you’re telling me that words,” she said slowly, “don’t mean anything?”

Spike’s eyes met hers again at last, piercing in the semi-dark. “Words can have power, can have meaning, sure,” he said evenly. “But they’re only ever really a gambit. An emphasis to actions at best. Because actions…” He swallowed hard and took two hesitant steps toward her. “Those’re what show the truth of things.”

“Actions,” Buffy repeated, her limbs frozen in a half-hopeful, half-terrified stasis.

Spike’s lips quirked and he took another step toward her. He was so close now that she could see every angle of his face in the light filtering through the kitchen window. She breathed in unsteadily and wafts of tobacco, leather, and piney cologne threaded intoxicatingly through her. The tingle on the back of her neck intensified into a full-out rolling shiver, like cold fingers brushing her skin. _Spike_ , it all said. _Spike is here_.

And she had no idea when that message had turned from warning to reassurance.

“Spike…”

A cool, calloused finger pressed against her bottom lip. Her breath hitched as the digit dragged gently down, blue eyes holding her in such a tight grip that she wasn't entirely sure she hadn't been thralled.

“I think we’re done with words for now, pet.”

Buffy's heart stuttered in her chest. “We are?”

Spike nodded and wrapped his hands around her upper arms in an iron grip. He tugged her hard against him, and she gasped as she was molded against steeply cut swathes of leather, muscle, and bone. Another hardness poked her lower belly as Spike crushed his lips to hers and, even spell-free and not in love, his touch set her on fire. Spike kissed exactly like he fought—direct, dirty, and devout. Buffy moaned when his tongue demanded battle with hers, and her fingers curled into the lapels of his duster as she ground against him like a sex-starved hussy. She whimpered when her movements pressed her clit in just the right way, and Spike growled into her mouth. He kissed her even more recklessly, his entire body rocking against hers. Her pleasure swelled on the crest of desperate mewls. 

Then, inexplicably, Spike broke his mouth from hers and gently shoved her away.

Buffy stumbled back, disoriented and panting. “What… why’d you stop?” Her voice was disappointed, practically needy, but she was beyond caring.

Spike heaved a shuddering breath, looking as frustrated and hungry as she felt. “You stay out here any longer making those kinds of noises and we’re likely to have company.”

Oh. Right. She was still on her back porch, and had been making out with Spike in full view of anyone who cared to look outside. Buffy self-consciously wrapped her arms around her waist, a flush rising in her cheeks. “I wouldn’t expect you to care.”

“I care about not getting staked by over-eager Slayerettes or a scandalized Joyce,” Spike said shortly.

"Mom's not home right now."

Spike exhaled noisily. "Fine, then. Just the Slayerettes." He hesitated, then added, “And I care about not making your night any harder.”

“That’s… weirdly gentlemanly of you.” Weird was just the Spike descriptor of the year, apparently.

Spike’s mouth thinned. “I’m no bloody gentleman,” he growled.

“No kidding.”

An uncomfortable silence fell, and Buffy had no idea what to do next. They were both clearly drowning in sexual frustration, but that was only a piece of the weirdness puzzle that was now between them. If she allowed herself to continue working on said puzzle, then that was it, she couldn’t go back, and there were some places she absolutely couldn’t go—again—with a vampire, no matter how helpful or good a kisser or legally her husband he was. No, she had to nip this in the bud. Pretend–

“You want to come back to my crypt?”

Spike’s question froze her to the spot, and the look she gave him must’ve been telling, because he immediately exhaled in a short, darkly understanding huff.

“Never mind.”

She swallowed hard. “Spike, I…”

He turned away and leapt over the porch railing into the yard, escaping before she could force more words between her uncooperative lips.

“Night, Slayer,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Give Dawn my best.”

Then, with a movement of black leather on shadow, he was gone.

***

Buffy’s usual cold shower relief that night was an abysmal failure. That wasn’t to say that she didn’t get off because, hey, she’d gotten damn good at finding the exact right temperature and pressure to ensure a happy outcome.

But it was still just water.

Water didn’t kiss her like a man starving.

Water didn’t press her against it and show her exactly how affecting her presence and her touch was.

Water wasn’t Spike.

Buffy sat on the edge of the tub, wrapped in her towel as she glared balefully at the now-inert showerhead, Spike’s ring clutched in her palm. “This is all your fault.”

The showerhead didn’t reply.

The jerk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Buffy's showerhead continues to be a jerk. And loses its #1 position in Buffy's sex life.


	3. Here Comes the Bride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^^^ The chapter title doesn't lie. *whistles innocently*

It was barely noon, but Buffy had already taken two tepid showers—both of which had somehow left her even antsier and more sexually frustrated than before. And way more pissed off.

For a guy so staunchly invested in actions over words, Spike sure had high-tailed it fast away from her porch the night before. She wanted to pretend that meant his main interest in her had to do with getting some nookie, and when he’d realized that wasn’t going to happen…

Only, Spike’s actions stretched back a lot longer than last night. He’d spent the last eight months acting like the estranged husband he technically was; he’d done a lot of things—including risking his own neck—that seemed like way too much effort for a guy just looking to get laid.

Though, what was it Angel had said way back when, after Spike had first come to town? Something about how he never stopped until he got what he wanted. So, obviously, Spike was after _something._ Something he wasn’t willing to seek outside their non-existent marriage bed. A situation she would have called impossible if not for knowing how devoted he’d been to Drusilla. It was the kind of devotion that, with anyone not a vampire, she’d have immediately called love. But Spike wasn’t supposed to be able to love. Not in the real, soulful way that humans or Angel could.

Except, he did. Or had, at least.

 _Tell me what you want, my love,_ he’d whispered in her ear when they’d snuggled on Giles’s armchair last year, _and I’ll give it to you. Anything, everything you want of my heart is yours. Unless you want it to be beat. ‘Fraid that option’s off the menu, what with me being undead and all._

Nibbling her bottom lip, Buffy dialed Willow’s dorm number from the kitchen and was both relieved and terrified when she answered. “Rosenberg-Maclay dorm room.”

“Hey, Wil?”

“Buffy!” Willow’s initially perky voice turned worried. “What’s up?”

“Nothing! I mean… nothing apocalyptic.” Buffy grimaced and glanced down the hall. Thankfully, Mom and Dawn were still out shopping for Dawn’s school supplies.

“Okay…” There was a hesitant pause. “So, are you calling just to say hello? Not that I mind! But I mean… we can meet up somewhere and actually hang out. Or you can come here. Or we can head to Xander’s basement and watch a movie or something. I’m pretty sure he’s in between jobs again, so he should be home.”

“No, I’m not–” Buffy winced and backpedaled. “I mean, sure, later, we totally can.”

“Uh uh. I’m sensing a big ol’ ‘but’ here.”

“Geez, Wil, ease up on the spidey senses.”

“So, I’m right,” Willow said triumphantly. “There is a ‘but.'”

“Like a whole load of them.” Buffy wrinkled her nose at the mental image and shook it away.

“That's a lot.” There was rustling in the background, as if Willow was situating herself more comfortably. “Okay, spill.”

“I just… have a question.”

“Oh!” Willow’s voice turned cheery. “Well, then I am totally Answers Girl. Fire away.”

Buffy froze, gripping the phone so hard she was on the verge of cracking the plastic, her nerve nearly slipping away. She forced the words out in a rush; “When you willed that Spike and I get married, what exactly did you say?”

There was a startled pause. “Um, are we…” Willow inhaled uncertainly. “Just so I’m clear: are we actually talking about this right now, or am I supposed to pretend that you’re not... you know?”

Buffy’s mouth quirked humorlessly. “We’re definitely not pretending I’m not married to Spike right now.”

“Okay then.” Willow fell mostly silent on the other end of the line, making a small humming noise that always meant she was thinking. “So, the spell. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember the exact wording anymore, but it was something like, ‘If Buffy needs Spike so badly, then why doesn’t she just marry him?’”

All the breath left Buffy’s lungs, and not at all for the reasons she’d braced for.

 _Need?_ If she _needed_ Spike? It wasn’t like they’d been on friendly terms before the spell, so why would she possibly have needed... Oh. Right. The commandos.

“Uh, Buffy?”

“I’m here!” Buffy chirped immediately, an octave too high. She mentally reviewed Willow’s wording with a frown. “That was really it? You didn’t say anything else about us? About me and Spike, I mean.”

“Nope, that was it. After that I started ranting about Xander being a demon magnet.”

“But…”

“But?”

Buffy sighed. “But you didn’t say anything about us being in love.”

“Well… no.” Willow made a small little noise of understanding. “But you guys were. And you want to know why.”

“I mean, I know why _I_ was. I’d never marry anyone if I didn’t love them first. But Spike…”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess,” Willow said tentatively, “neither would he.”

Buffy stared hard at the kitchen wall, her jaw clenching tight with frustrated resignation. “I guess not.”

***

“Mom, did you and Dad love each other?”

Joyce turned with a startled expression from where she was stirring a pot of tomato sauce on the stove, clearly caught off guard. “What… Buffy, where did _that_ question come from?”

Buffy shrugged as she leaned against the center island with exaggerated casualness. “I’ve just been thinking.”

“I see.” Joyce’s tone implied that she very much did not see. She sighed and slowly set down her spoon in its holder by the stove. “Your father and I loved each other like crazy, at least in the beginning.”

“What changed?”

Joyce hesitated, then, “It was more an issue of deterioration than change.”

“Huh?”

Joyce pursed her lips. “The thing is, honey, that love—while it’s all grand and fun—isn’t the end-all-be-all conqueror of life everyone likes to think it is. I was young and idealistic, Hank was ambitious and absent. It wasn’t a great combination for a partnership.”

“A partnership,” Buffy repeated quietly. The word stung through her like a dull blade. She’d tried for that situation so many times, but even her shortest and smallest attempts had ended up bad—never mind everything that had happened with Angel. Owen Thurman had nearly gotten killed; Riley Finn had actually died. Scott Hope had just broken up with her; and Parker… well, the less said about him, the better.

It was a good thing her marriage with Spike was neither love-based (post-spell, anyway) nor a real partnership. Even though a traitorous part of her was starting to wish it was. Did Spike wish that, too? Was that the _something_ he was trying for with her?

Joyce gave a wan, wistful smile. “I know it can be hard to consider, especially at your age, but marriage is really only love-adjacent. It’s about life, not love—sharing things, supporting dreams, working through obstacles and goals. If you’re lucky, being partners with someone helps your love grow stronger and richer. And if it doesn’t…” Her expression tightened, darkly humorous. “Then you end up like me.”

Buffy’s throat tightened. She moved around the island and wrapped her arms carefully around Joyce’s waist. “There’s nothing wrong with how you ended up, Mom.”

Joyce pressed a kiss to her forehead with a sigh. “No, not wrong. Nothing that gave me you and Dawn could ever have been wrong.” Her mouth twitched, her voice turning wry. “Even if you both do give me more gray hair every day.”

***

_Like mother, like daughter_ , was the unfortunate takeaway Buffy'd gotten from the talk with her mom. But Mom had ended up okay, so Buffy would too. She had to.

No matter what dreams abounded, the cold reality was that, in Buffy Land, love and partnership were dangerous, volatile, bound-to-either-destroy-her-or-the-world kind of things. And since it was her sacred duty to make sure the world didn’t end, it was better—safer—to just avoid those kinds of things entirely.

As long as Spike was only connected to her via a technicality and a peripheral existence, then there was no danger of it all going to pot. Not for him, and not for her. Her libido would just have to deal. Buffy would continue with things as they’d been before her recent marital make-out session. She’d keep being the One Girl, she who hung out a lot in cemeteries.

Case in point: Buffy was currently trudging to Shady Hill to start patrol. Tonight’s route was a huge one, but intentionally lacking a circuit through Restfield, since the last person she needed to run into right now was Spike. Right now, what Buffy _needed_ was to take a nice hard crack at evil. She’d fight evil all night if she had to, until the heady aphrodisiac of a good slay burned every thought in her brain into exhaustion and back aches.

Thankfully, the undead residents of Shady Hill were happy to accommodate. It didn’t take long before Buffy ran into a roving nest of vamps that needed a good whaling on. After way too short a time, she was down to one vamp—a muscle-y bald guy who was probably fairly attractive when he wasn’t caught up in newborn psycho hunger—and was just about to deliver a final quip and staking combo.

That was, until a black blur of leather leaped in the way and stole her kill from right out in front of her.

“You have got to be kidding me!”

Spike had the audacity to look pleased with himself, preening as he brushed dust from his coat. “’Lo, Buffy. Fine evening, innit?”

Oh, it was _fine_ alright. If ‘fine’ now meant ‘perverse and verging on evil.’

Buffy leveled her intruding husband with a cutting glare as frustration welled through her like fire. She kept her stake clenched in her right hand. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Spike’s grin fell to a confused frown. “Helping out, aren’t I?” His voice gained a mutinous edge. “Like I’ve been doing.” 

Frustration burned hotter, harder. “I don’t actually recall asking for your help,” she snapped. “Not at any point in the last eight months, in fact. Not for patrol. Not for Dawn. Not for Scooby stuff. Not for anything. So, do both of us a favor and _stop helping_.”

Spike stiffened, regarding her with incredulous offense. “For fuck’s sake, Slayer, who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?”

Buffy raised her stake. “Spike. Leave. _Now_.”

His expression flashed into hurt before he buried it beneath an impassive mask. “Right,” he said flatly, nostrils flaring. “A bloke can see when he’s unwelcome.” His entire frame trembled with tension, his hands clenching into fists. “I should’ve known better than to think you’d…” His words trailed off as he shook his head and turned on his heel, stomping away from her.

The self-mocking, angry resignation in his voice was her downfall—a verbal echo of her own crushing, stinging hopes. Her resolve broke.

“Think I’d what?” she demanded, the words spilling from her with helpless fury. “Admit that I want my husband?”

Spike froze. He turned toward her, the motion stilted and wary. “That’s the long and short of it.”

“Wanting you,” Buffy managed, feeling suddenly, irrationally like she wanted to cry, “isn’t the problem.”

Spike’s scarred brow rose. He looked almost laughably baffled. “It’s not?”

“No.” A humorless bark of laughter escaped her lips. “I’ve wanted you for the past eight months. The real problem is that my stupid showerhead isn’t cutting it as a stand-in anymore.” She threw her stake away into the dark, arms waving in exasperation. “I mean, god, Spike, it should be illegal for you to kiss like that. I’m going to have to get a newer model of showerhead or something. Maybe something with ten settings, at this point. Or do you think they make them in–”

Her words cut off with a startled squeak as Spike darted back to her with vampire speed, his hands curling possessively around her biceps. His jaw was set in a hard line, his eyes glittering.

“Buffy.”

She drew in a short, unsteady breath as she stared at him. Her center of gravity felt shifted, as if someone had moved the world by about twenty degrees in the last two seconds and forgotten to tell her.

“What?” she managed, more exhalation than an actual word.

“Say it again.”

His voice was sharp, almost angry, and for a full second she had absolutely no idea what he was asking for. Did he want the low-down on her showerhead model? Additional kudos for his kissing talents? Then his expression shifted, exuding a desperate hope that nearly ate her alive, and she knew exactly what he wanted to hear.

It was a good thing she wanted to say it again. The world could stay tilted for a little while. 

“I want you, Spike,” she said quietly. “I want my husband.” And because words were only an emphasis to action according to Spike, she punctuated her declaration with a kiss.

She meant the kiss to be soft—maybe even tender—but Spike turned it hungry as soon as their lips connected. She found herself once again pulled roughly against his chest, and a groan tore from his throat like a curse or a prayer, or both. His erection pressed against her hip, hard and insistent, and she whimpered as she rocked against it, sparks of pleasure coursing up her spine.

Spike’s mouth left hers to trail sucking, biting kisses down the side of her neck, his voice escaping in a harsh, broken vow. “Buffy, I love you. God, I love you so much.”

She wished the words shocked her. She wished she believed that Spike couldn’t love. But that time had passed after the last eight months of their evil-clad marital contract and today’s conversations.

So, Buffy just let her hands run over Spike’s shoulders and bared neck as he ravished her, and managed a hoarse, “Show me.”

He growled an agreement against her throat, and his hands pressed at her jacket, shoving it down and over her shoulders before flinging it away. They stumbled back, and Buffy half-fell against a gravestone. Spike finished the job, tugging her fully to the ground beneath him. She sank against a carpet of grass, the softness against her back only slightly cooler than the hard body above her. Her gaze fixed on a sky full of stars as Spike mapped his way down her body, unbuttoning her shirt and covering each exposed inch of skin with his mouth, tongue, and fingers. She felt like a poem being written, or being unraveled, her fingers digging into the dirt as Spike nipped at the hollow of her hip. She squirmed and gasped, bringing the sound of heady life to a place only meant for death and decay. Was this the kind of partnership she could be allowed to have? Love-adjacency amongst the tombstones?

Buffy wrestled herself up to a sitting position and tugged at Spike's clothes as he drew her pants down. “Get these off.”

Spike nipped harder at her skin, just shy of breaking the skin, and she shivered. He met her eyes with a grin. “I’m a bit busy here.”

“If you don’t take them off, I’ll rip them off.”

He huffed out a laugh and sat up, straddling her as he tugged off his duster. “Bossy bride.”

A frisson of pleasure rolled through her—heavy and deep—and she wrapped her hands around his jaw, drawing him to her with a fierce kiss. “Yeah,” she said, drawing blood as she nibbled on his bottom lip. “I am.”

“Oh, Christ,” he groaned, shuddering. “ _Buffy_.”

Then he pressed her back to the ground and there were no words, just the frantic tangle of them shedding clothes amidst breathless kisses. She expected the ivory pallor of Spike’s skin that came into full view, but hadn’t thought to expect said skin to be quite so chiseled. She ran her hands up the elegant curves of his shoulders and down his chest as he sucked at her nipples and thumbed her clit, and she delighted in how she made him tremor even as he made her fall apart.

Her orgasm coursed through her like an inferno, blazing amidst his cold touch and the two fingers he had pumping in and out of her—hotter than anything shower water had ever been able to give her.

“You come like a goddess,” Spike whispered as he worked her through the aftershocks, her limbs spasming jerkily. “My stunning bride.”

Buffy clutched at him, her hand finding his cock as it pressed against her, silky and pulsing. She stroked him up and down with Slayer strength, and he pressed his forehead in the crook of her neck with a gasp.

“Oh fuck, Buffy, you keep doing that and I’m going to pop.”

Buffy pressed a kiss to his temple, lips finding disheveled curls, and guided his cock toward her entrance. “Then I need you,” she said breathlessly, “to get inside me _now_.”

“Gladly,” Spike growled. He nipped at her collarbone as he sank down inside her.

A cry of relief and pleasure parted Buffy’s lips as he filled her. It had been way too long since someone had been inside her, though none of the times before had been like this. Her husband was holding her hips and fucking her within an inch of her life, skittering them both against the grass with the force of his thrusts as Buffy scratched lines down his back and matched the roll of his hips with her own. Their mouths clashed in sloppy kisses and quick gasps of each other’s names mixed with curses, and Buffy’s head fell back on the grass as Spike’s hand pressed between them, caressing her clit in tight, wet circles.

She came with a sky of stars filling her gaze.

Spike chanted her name over and over, his thrusts turned more forceful, his rhythm breaking as she clenched around him. “ _Buffy_.” He came with a sharp inhalation, shuddering, his back arching and highlighting the swell of his Adam’s apple.

Buffy leaned up and kissed the bulge. Spike gasped, his head jerking down to kiss her roughly as he wrapped her up in his arms. He turned them to the side so that they lay in the grass, still facing, and his cock slipped from her with a wet sliding of skin, still half-hard.

Reality returned with sated sluggishness, so tilted now that Buffy was sure it was never going to right itself again.

“I really hope no more vampires are looking for trouble around here right now,” she muttered, a sigh against his pectoral. “Because my muscles are way too gooey for slayage.”

Spike rumbled a laugh, pressing a kiss to her forehead as his fingers combed through her hair. “I don’t sense anything, luv. Just us.”

 _Just us_. Buffy squeezed her eyes shut, the remnants of fear and frustration roiling through her again, returning from the distant shore that the bout of really great sex had marooned them on. “I don’t know how to do this.”

Spike stilled. “This?”

“Us. Being in a relationship.”

Another low laugh met her ears. “Pet, we’re married. Ergo, we’re in a bloody relationship already.”

“On paper.”

Spike drew back to fully meet her eyes. His expression was some mix of pride, pleading, and irritation that shouldn’t have been charming, but somehow was. “This,” he said flatly, motioning between them, “wasn’t on paper.”

“No,” Buffy agreed shakily, pulling away to wrap her arms around her waist defensively. “Which is what’s terrifying.”

Spike’s brow furrowed. “Why?”

“Because now everything is going to blow up in my face. And probably yours, too. I’ve done the relationship with a vampire thing already, and you know exactly how that ended.”

Spike’s expression hardened. “Yeah, it ended with you and me working together to save what we cared about.”

His words slapped her with near-physical force. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” Spike said with a scoff, rising to his feet and casting around for his jeans. “The point still stands. No matter how only on paper things've been for you the last eight months, they've never been that way for me.”

It was her turn to scoff. “Oh, please. Spike, get real, okay? You didn’t even like me eight months ago.”

He stiffened, abandoning the search for his clothes in favor of glaring at her. “Hey now, that’s not–”

“You abandoned a suicide attempt just to spite me!” Buffy stood, her hands curling into determined fists that pressed against her hipbones. A flash of pride wound through her when Spike’s gaze fixed hungrily on the motion.

“Yeah, alright,” he admitted with a grimace. “So, there might’ve been plenty of that at the first. But also…” He winced and set his jaw, staring at her like a man staring into the ranks of a firing squad. “Also, it was just a relief not to be alone anymore, alright? Seeing that bloody marriage certificate... it meant something. To have that. To know I was connected to someone. Even if it was a someone I thought I hated.”

Buffy’s hands unfisted and fell loose at her sides. “Oh.”

“And it felt good to be useful,” Spike continued, his wince deepening, as if he’d already been shot by his previous words and was now just a dead man digging his own grave. “Even if it meant throwing in my lot with the white hat crowd. And then… I don’t fucking know when it happened, Buffy, but it started mattering less that I was connected to the Slayer and more that I was connected to _you_.” He glared at her. “You with your bloody shampoo commercial hair and your big bleeding heart and your lethal right hook. A bloke’d have to be barking mad to not want to be married to you. To not...” He swallowed hard, the glare falling to something softer but somehow more intense. “Fall in love with you.”

Buffy stared at him, her husband who was standing literally bare before her, the action emphasizing his words. And he was trembling. Vibrating. _Afraid._

But he was staring her down all the same.

She knew it then: she could stake him on the spot—finish the job he’d attempted eight months ago—and not even need a piece of sharpened wood to do it. All she’d need to do was leave. Maybe spit out some words of rejection along the way to really bring the message home.

Buffy drew in a steadying breath as Spike tensed, bracing himself. Butterflies swarmed warringly in her stomach as she held up her left hand, wiggling her bare ring finger. “I want a ring.”

Spike blinked at her, his stance shifting loose. He looked lost. “A ring?”

“A wedding ring,” she clarified flatly. “I have your engagement ring, but I want a wedding ring. Something sturdy enough to not shatter when I end up in a fight.” Her eyes narrowed in thought. “Silver-colored, so it matches, in case I ever want to wear the set.” God knew when that would be, considering the skull ring was objectively hideous and about three sizes too big, but… well, if she was going to do this, then she was going to do it right.

Spike stared at her, his mouth slack. “What…” He shook his head slightly, as if clearing his ears. “Buffy, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying…” A wearily hopeful breath dragged her shoulders down. “Maybe we won’t turn out badly. Maybe we will. Maybe I’ll end up staking you next week. I don’t know, okay? But we _are_ already married, and one of us is in love and this is forever—at least for me, since we both know which one of us is realistically going to bite the dust first.” She paused, her throat growing tight. “And I want some of the perks of being in a relationship, for once. I want a partner. I want…” She spread her arms helplessly. “You, Spike.” Her brow quirked as she stared at his naked frame and caught the renewed hard-on that was bobbing heavily against his stomach. “And I’m thinking certain parts of you might agree.”

Spike let loose a breathless laugh as he strode toward her. “Pet, _all_ parts of me agree.”

“Oh? Good.” Buffy stopped him in his tracks as he made to swoop in and kiss her, pressing her fingers against his lips. “You realize this means we have to tell everyone."

Spike’s brow furrowed. “Doesn’t everyone already know?”

“Um, well, everyone except my mom.”

A flash of fear sliced through Spike’s gaze, so fast that she might’ve missed it if she hadn’t been watching him so intently.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered. He sighed and shifted around to grab her up in his arms bridal-style, to her shocked laughter as she instinctively grabbed him around the neck.

“Spike, what are you doing?”

He pressed a hard, quick kiss to her lips. “Taking you to my crypt,” he said gravely. “Where I’m going to shag the daylights out of you. Then we’ll get spiffied up and go see Joyce and”—he waggled his brows—“break the happy news that I’ve asked you to make me the happiest man on Earth.”

Quick understanding flashed through her. “And we conveniently won’t mention that you asked me that question almost a year ago. Or that we're already legally married. And nicely ask all the Scoobies to play along."

“That’s right.”

“Hmm,” Buffy said thoughtfully as Spike dipped them to grab up their clothes in one hand before steering them toward his crypt. “Mom's definitely going to make us have a wedding.”

“Figured as much.” Spike grinned wickedly. “We can even dance to _The Wind Beneath My Wings_.”

“Watch it, or I’ll make you wear a Hawaiian shirt instead of a tux.”

His grin widened. “Only if you wear one of those little grass skirts.”

Buffy rolled her eyes, her fingers winding into the curls at the base of his neck. “This is going to be the weirdest wedding ever, Mr. Bloody.”

“Too right, Mrs. Bloody.” Spike nuzzled her ear, his voice falling low. “And it's going to be magnificent."

Buffy smiled against Spike's collarbone as he carried her through the dark. "Spike?"

"Hmm?"

"Walk faster."

Spike's tongue curled behind his teeth as he obligingly doubled his pace. "Whatever you want, my love."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for joining me on this Spuffily wedded adventure, all!


End file.
